Mesothelioma claim against a brewery

Mr O was raised in S. Africa in close proximity to an asbestos mine. He recalled that his property was often covered in dust as the wind would carry asbestos laden dust from the mines.

There are huge deposits of asbestos in South Africa and thousands have died from Mesothelioma. Researchers believe the cancer is vastly underreported as diseases like tuberculosis are still health issues for the country. This means that many workers will die of these conditions before developing mesothelioma, which usually takes several decades to develop thus skewing the statistics of the true incidence of mesothelioma.

Mr O moved to The United Kingdom and did various jobs before working in a local pub and brewery. At the time, the pub was being refurbished and he often worked alongside maintenance workers. There were pipes and boilers that were lagged with asbestos as well as asbestos in the structure of the building.

Exposure was difficult to prove as he did not work directly with asbestos but was in the vicinity of maintenance work. To support the claim our solicitors found corroborative witness accounts from another employee who worked for the brewery at the same time.

The claim was issued and the insurers of the brewery agreed to settle and made an offer of several hundred thousand pounds to include an amount payable to the hospice that cared for Mr O.  The amount payable to the hospice totalled the amount of non-NHS funded hospice care that was provided by the hospice to Mr O.

If you have worked at a brewery and were exposed to asbestos, you may be able to make a claim. This is possible even for relatively small levels of exposure.